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For the past month or so, like most Januarys, I feel like I’ve been in a cave. I haven’t been connecting with friends, making plans for dinners or beers, and I certainly haven’t been doing any writing at all. Usually I blame it on holiday overload and “people-sick”, but this year I have a much better excuse – Mrs. Brackett herself. It’s because of her brilliance at Christmas this year that I’ve been checking myself out of the world around me and either immersing myself in my new Macbook Pro (and all of the PC-to-Mac conversion fun that comes with “The Switch”) or immersing myself in Skyrim (for those not familiar, it’s a huge videogame that sucks up hours and hours of a person’s life). As if delivering me a brand new son to play with wasn’t enough! Suffice it to say, with two little ones demanding all my attention free time is at a premium like never before, and I’ve been a very selfish boy with mine lately.

It would take an event of great magnitude to pull me from my self-indulgence.Continue reading →

I can’t believe it’s already been a month since Fred was born! It was just yesterday it seems I was lamenting the passing of time on Nyana’s second birthday, and now here Fred’s already a month old and well on his way to asking to borrow the keys to Daisy Rae. It’s been a crazy month filled with not a lot of sleep, and a fair bit of frustration. But there’s been a lot of fun along the way, too. Some highlights of Frederick’s first month that I never want to forget:

It’s been three weeks now since Fred joined us here at The Karen & Donners Show; three whole weeks of newborn diaper changes and middle-of-the-night feedings and an unending need to do more laundry. His entry into this world was an experience completely opposite to Nyana’s arrival—my water broke spontaneously around four in the morning on my due date, by noon I was admitted to hospital and by 3:00 PM I was clad in a hospital gown, walking the hallways waiting for contractions to begin from the induction IV they’d placed. At 6:30 PM his heart rate started bouncing around and at 9:28 PM on his due date he was born via emergency c-section, weighing in at roughly three-times his sister’s weight, a hefty 8 lb 4oz (3,742 grams). Despite spending his first night in the Intermediate Nursery adjacent to the NICU to monitor his heart rate, we were officially discharged 37 hours after he was born—Nyana logged more than five thousand hours before being discharged. He’s been home for three weeks and sometimes I still can’t believe that they just let us package him up and bring him home.

I would like to introduce you all to Frederick Adair Brackett. Born at 9:28pm on Dec. 7, 2012, weighing in at 8lbs, 4oz./3.74kg. He was born cesarian, at 40 weeks and 0 days, smack dab on his due date. He, and his gorgeous-as-hell mother, are both happy and healthy and doing very well as they enjoy a nice weekend-over in the postpartum wing directly above the NICU where Nyana spent her first 222 days.

It’s no secret that Don and I have always been a bit unconventional. We’d officially been a thing for a few weeks before going on our first date, and had spent only a handful of nights apart by the time we decided to move in together, just three months into our relationship. After rushing into cohabitation, we waited nearly eight years to make it official and when it did finally come time to get married, I handed him a stack of cash and a photo of the ring I wanted custom-made. As for wedding vows… well, we both sort of forgot to write them so we just made them up on the spot. Given our history, it just makes sense that when it comes to domestic duties and raising a family, we’d take a bit of a non-traditional approach there, too.

Almost a year ago now, Don gave his notice at a job he only kinda-sorta liked, and I accepted a job that I hands-down love. I went back to work full-time, and Don said good-bye to the corporate world and hello to CBC Kids. His official title on Facebook now reads: Hausband at The Sunshine Brigade.

It rains in Vancouver. A lot. And it goes without saying that when you live in a rainy city, like we do, and you don’t own a car, like we don’t, you’re going to get wet. A lot. This also means that your toddler is going to get wet. A lot. This is no problem for us, here at the Karen and Donners Show, but from the looks we get from people on the street, it sure is a problem for a lot of other folks.

Yesterday evening, along with countless Dads in countless malls all across the Halloween-celebrating world, I entered (and survived the initiation of) the time-honoured tradition (since the 90s) of the Mall Trick-Or-Treat. My very pregnant wife and I dressed as unabashed rednecks (read: full 34 week belly in bare open view), and took Nyana out in her fuzzy cat costume for her very first sampling of the free candy lifestyle. Our first draft of the costume idea included a bottle of Jack for Karen and some tire-treads on the cat costume for the whole roadkill effect, but cooler heads prevailed and we went G-rated instead. Or maybe we just got lazy…

Well, we’ve finally taken the plunge and moved over here after two whole years of posting in Nyana’s blog, Adventures of The Sunshine Brigade. With our Little Big Man just six weeks away (give or take) from making an appearance, and with Nyana’s lung disease nearly a distant memory, it only made sense that we carve out a new little corner of the Interwebs and leave Nyana’s story as it is, closed on her second birthday. It’s nice to see that you’ve made the jump over to the new Karen & Donners Show, too.

And it only seems fitting, when one door closes and another opens, that we pick right up where we left off, with our Princess turning two. We had quite the struggle to get her to this point—many sleepless nights and days fraught with worry—and so it was so nice, when she did turn two, to have our wireless girl the star of the show. We made it a two day affair: a bubble party with her peers on Saturday and a present-opening frenzy with extended family on Sunday. And on both days, cupcakes were featured.